The week of June 17th Agua Para el Pueblo (APP)
began work alongside the municipality of San Nicolás, Santa Bárbara (pop. 6500)
on a multi-faceted project that will improve and secure the town’s potable water
and sanitation services, and which includes the 9th AguaClara plant
project in Honduras. For the first time, AguaClara is just one component of an
integrated project that addresses various sanitation needs, not just the
incorporation of a treatment plant into the current water system. Construction
of the 32 L/s plant, which will be the first to include the AguaClara Stacked
Rapid Sand Filter as part of the original design, is well under way.
History and Institutional Roles
The long-awaited treatment plant was first designed by
Cornell’s design server back in March 2012, delayed due to a small overhaul of
the design tool code made in an effort to include the latest innovations in
what was believed to be, and ultimately did turn out to be, the next AguaClara
project. APP completed the final design and budget for the plant, which
included an extension of the conduction line to the proposed site, placed well
above the existing storage tanks in order to expand gravity-fed service to 25
households located higher on the slope, in June 2012.
The treatment plant was first formulated as a Rotary
Foundation project. The Santa Bárbara Rotary Club, with whom APP had
collaborated on the Atima plant project that was finished in June 2012, would
again be the local Rotary counterpart, and the Baltimore Rotary district
governor Mary Anne Rishebarger was leading the effort along with AguaClara
alumni to raise support among US clubs. APP was working the budget with the
Santa Bárbara club and awaiting their approval.
However, the Aguasan program of the Swiss Cooperation in
Central America learned of the project in late 2012 through their existing
relationship with APP. The program’s area of influence encompasses much of
southern Honduras, including the department of El Paraíso, where APP has
collaborated with them on a successful plant project in the town of Alauca and
has designed another in Morocelí. The department of Santa Bárbara is not within the Swiss Cooperation’s area
of influence, but they ultimately made an exception for this project, in part
because they were familiar with the impressive administration of the San
Nicolás water system. They offered to contribute 67% of the budget, with the
municipality covering the remaining 33%, so that the project could start as
soon as the proposal was approved in Managua. The program would fund the
project, however, only if the scope was expanded to include broader education
programs, sanitation infrastructure, and watershed management planning.
The investment on the part of the community prior to the
project’s initiation included the design/study for the treatment plant, valued
at $7,100, 30% of which was paid by the water board ASANIC. The other 70% was
absorbed the AguaClara program of APP/Cornell. ASANIC had also purchased the
land on which the plant would be built at a cost of $3,827.
The institution responsible for carrying out the project is
the municipality of San Nicolás. They will manage all funds and the purchase of
materials. They will receive technical support in the form of civil engineering,
certain administrative roles, and watershed management from the Associated
Municipalities of the Southwest of Santa Bárbara (MUNASBAR), an association of
six municipalities in the region of which San Nicolás is a member. APP plays
its role in the project as a supporting implementation partner of the
municipality.
Components and Goals
The water system in San Nicolás has undergone an overhaul in
the past five years with a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank that
was absorbed by the central government. Carried out between 2008 and 2010, the previous
project included the construction of an intake structure at the source on Cerro
el Volcán in the neighboring municipality of Larada, a new 16-km conduction
line with a capacity of 32 L/s (500 gpm) to transport water from the source,
improvements in the distribution system, and the creation of the decentralized
autonomous water board ASANIC (Aguas de San Nicolás). Furthermore, a higher tariff
with a tiered structure based on number of taps in each household was put in
place in order to sustain the independent operation and maintenance of the water
system, with an average monthly household water bill of 60 lempiras.
Increasing the tariff upon the introduction of a treatment
plant into the water system that covers the costs of the operation sustainably
is perhaps the most challenging and sensitive part of AguaClara projects. The
starting point is often a deficient rate that does not cover the maintenance
and operation costs of even the existing water system without the treatment
plant, and the adjustment to make the new plant and system sustainable, now
including chemicals and plant operators, can be several-fold. The San Nicolás project
has the advantage that ASANIC begins with an ample income that allows them to
employ an administrator and maintenance staff, maintain a challenging
conduction line, and keep savings. Compared to the hike of up to 400% that the
tariff has seen in other communities when the plant was introduced, the difference
in San Nicolás may be more palatable. On the other hand, the average tariff
will likely be higher than the starting point for any previous AguaClara plant
project.
The water from the source on Cerro El Volcán in San Nicolás
is not safe for human consumption, showing moderate to high turbidity in all
seasons and consistent presence of fecal coliforms. The source has shown the
unusual quality of producing higher-turbidity water in the dry season than in the
rainy season (the hydrology hasn’t been studied, but locals speak of a snake
that stirs up sediment in the cave where the water emerges when it becomes
active in the summertime). In the formulation of the project, the construction
of the treatment plant is not a primary goal but rather a means to an end,
which is consistent filtered and disinfected water service.
A second project objective is to expand and improve water and
sanitation services. One piece of this is adding piped water connections to the
25 households located above the distribution tank. This is made possible in the
gravity-fed system by building the treatment plant higher on the hill than the
tank, which necessitates an extension of the conduction line and substitution
of 6” pipe for 8” pipe on a section of the line to maintain the same design
flow rate with the higher outlet point. The other piece is sanitation
infrastructure. San Nicolás has partial coverage of sewer connections. A large
part of the population, however, lacks sanitary installations entirely. The
project will include the construction of at least 75 latrines in neighborhoods
without access to the sewer. Bathrooms in the elementary school and high school
will also be renovated and installations expanded.
Infrastructure is just one component. The project also
includes intervention in households and schools to improve hygiene practices.
This process is guided by the ESCASAL methodology (Escuela y Casa Saludable, or Healthy School and Home), a curriculum
and supporting materials developed by UNICEF and the Honduran central water and
sanitation authority SANAA in the 90’s. Project personnel aim to visit 80% of
homes to educate on hand washing, responsible use of water supplies, and proper
use of sanitary installations. Furthermore, teachers and select students will
be trained as ambassadors to lead the effort in educating and improving sanitary
practices in the schools.
Finally, the project goals include the development and
implementation of a watershed protection and management plan for the source on
Cerro El Volcán to secure the water supply used by the municipalities of San
Nicolás and San Vincente Centenario for future generations.
Progress and Timeline
The infrastructure components of the project have advanced
quickly in the first five weeks. 6” pipes have been swapped out for 8” pipes on
a remote 720m section of the conduction line across the valley from San Nicolás.
Furthermore, the extension of the line which brings water past the distribution
tank to the plant site and back again over a 470m stretch is finished. The work
on the conduction line was delayed because the river which runs between the
town and the section being worked on was impassable after heavy rains, which
forced workers to bring water manually or by car to the construction site until
last week.
The work on the plant has been sped up by the presence of
foreman German Castejón and mason Kiki Rodríguez, who both worked on the Alauca
and Atima AguaClara projects. While the San Nicolás plant is higher capacity
and features new innovations including the Stacked Rapid Sand Filter and a re-designed
sedimentation tank, their familiarity with the plant processes down to minute
details has facilitated work meetings, reduced errors, and freed up time for
the engineers to divide attention among other components of the project. The
date for completion of the plant is February 15th, 2014. After two
months of follow-up, the entire project should be finished by April 15th.
In order to measure project results, a baseline study is
being carried out which surveys water system users and students on their
familiarity with hygiene practices and the water system, and will collect data
on sanitation installations. The ESCASAL training is now underway in its first
stages, beginning last week with meetings with school teachers. The
socialization of the treatment plant and higher tariff has seen progress with
local television programs and meetings in the schools, health center, and
individual neighborhoods. In the coming weeks ASANIC will define the tariff
structure for when the plant is put into operation, in order to work with
precise numbers in meetings with system users.
Training of plant operators is scheduled to begin in
September. Eight candidates will be trained and narrowed down to three
permanent operators during the first months of operation. APP technician
Antonio Elvir, who has been involved in training AguaClara operators in the
other seven plants in Honduras, will assist in San Nicolás as well.
For project photos, which will continue to be posted
approximately weekly for the duration of project, visit:
